Dedication

Dedication By Aleister Crowley © 2007 by http://www.HorrorMasters.com

In the blind hour of madness, in its might, When the red star of tyranny was highest; When baleful watchfires scared the witless night, And kings mocked Freedom, as she wept: “Thou diest!” When priestcraft snarled at Thought: “I crush thee quite!” Then rose the splendid song of thee, “Thou liest!” Out of the darkness, in the death of hope, Thy white star flamed in Europe’s horoscope. The coffin-nails were driven home: the curse Of mockery’s blessing flung the dust upon her: The horses of Destruction dragged the hearse Over besmirched roads of Truth and Honour: The obscene God spat on the universe: The sods of Destiny were spattered on her Then rose thy spirit through the shaken skies: “Child of the Dawn, I say to thee, arise!” Through the ancestral shame and feudal gloom, Through mediæval blackness rung thy pæan: Let there be light!—the desecrated tomb Gaped as thy fury smote the Galilean. Let there be light! and there was light: the womb Of Earth resounded, and the empyrèan Roared: and the thunder of the seas averred The presence of thy recreating word. The stone rolls back: the charioted night, Stricken, swings backwards on her broken pinions: Faith sickens, drunken tyranny reels, the spite Of monarchs, ruinous of their chained dominions: The splendid forehead, crowned with Love and Light, Flames in the starry air: the fallen minions Drop like lost souls through horrid emptinesses To their own black unfathomable abysses! Now Freedom, flower and star and wind and wave And spirit of the unimagined fire, Begotten on the dishonourable grave Of fallen tyranny, may seek her sire In the pure soul of Man, her lips may lave

In the pure waters of her soul’s desire, Truth: and deep eyes behold thine eyes as deep, Fresh lips kiss thine that kissed her soul from sleep. See Italy, the eagle of all time, Triumphant, from her coffin’s leaden prison, Soar into freedom, seek the heights sublime Of self-reliance, from those depths new-risen, Stirred by the passion of thy mighty rhyme: Eagle, and phœnix: shrill, sharp flames bedizen The burning citadel, where crested Man Leaps sword in hand upon the Vatican. Those dire words spoken, that thine hammer beat, Of fire and steel and music, wrath god-worded, Consuming with immeasurable heat, The styes and kennels of priest and king, that girded The loins of many peoples, till the seat Of Hell was shaken to its deep, and herded Hosts of the tyrant trembled, faltered, fled, When none pursued but curses of men dead:— See, from the Calvary of the Son of Man, Where all the hopes of France were trodden under; See, from the crucifixion of Sedan, Thy thought the lightning, and thy word the thunder! See her supreme, kingly, republican, New France arisen, with her heart in sunder— Yet throned in Heaven on ever-burning wheels, Freedom resurgent, sealed with seven seals. The seal of Reason, made impregnable: The seal of Truth, immeasurably splendid: The seal of Brotherhood, man’s miracle: The seal of Peace, and Wisdom heaven-descended: The seal of Bitterness, cast down to Hell: The seal of Love, secure, not-to-be-rended: The seventh seal, Equality: that, broken, God sets his thunder and earthquake for a token. Now if on France the iron clangours close, Corruption’s desperate hand, and lurking treason, Or alien craft, or menace of strange blows Wrought of her own sons, in this bitter season: Lift up thy voice, breathe fury on her foes, Smite bigots yet again, and call on Reason,

Reason that must awake, and sternly grip The unhooded serpent of dictatorship! Or, if thou have laid aside the starry brand, And scourge, whose knots with their foul blood are rotten Whom thou didst smite; if thine unweary hand Sicken of slaughter; if thy soul have gotten Its throne in so sublime a fatherland, Above these miscreants and misbegotten; If even already thy spirit have found peace, Among the thronged immortal secrecies; If with the soul of Æschylus thy soul Talk, and with Sappho’s if thy music mingle; If with the spirit infinite and whole Of Shakespeare thou commune; if thy brows tingle With Dante’s kiss; if Milton’s thunders roll Amid thy skies; if thou, supreme and single, Be made as Shelley or as Hugo now, And all their laurels mingle on thy brow— Then (as Elijah, when the whirling fire Caught him) stoop not thy spiritual splendour, And sacred-seeking eyes to our desire, But mould one memory yet, divinely tender, Of earth, and leave thy mantle, and thy lyre, A double portion of thy spirit to render, That yet the banner may fling out on high, And yet the lyre teach freemen how to die! Master, the night is falling yet again. I hear dim tramplings of unholy forces: I see the assembly of the foully slain: The scent of murder steams: riderless horses Gallop across the earth, and seek the inane: The sun and moon are shaken in their courses: The kings are gathered, and the vultures fall Screaming, to hold their ghastly festival. Master, the sons of Freedom are but few— Yea, but as strong as the storm-smitten sea, Their forehead consecrated with the dew, Their heart made mighty: let my voice decree, My spirit lift their standard: clear and true Bid my trump sound, “Let all the earth be free!” With thine own strength and melody made strong,

And filled with fire and light of thine own song. Only a boy’s wild songs, a boy’s desire, I bring with reverent hands. The task is ended— The twilight draws on me: the sacred fire Sleeps: I have sheathed my sword, my bow unbended: So for one hour I lay aside the lyre, And come, alone, unholpen, unbefriended, As streams get water of the sun-smit sea, Seeking my ocean and my sun in thee. Yea, with thy whirling clouds of fiery light Involve my music, gyring fuller and faster! Yea, to my sword lend majesty and might To dominate all tumult and disaster, That even my song may pierce the iron night, Invoking dawn in thy great name, O Master! Till to the stainless heaven of the soul Even my chariot-wheels on thunder roll. And so, most sacred soul, most reverend head, The silence of deep midnight shall be bound, And with the mighty concourse of the dead That live, that contemplate, my place be found, Even mine, through all the seasons that are shed Like leaves upon the darkness, where the sound Of all high song through calm eternity Shall beat and boom, thine own maternal sea. For in the formless world, so swift a fire Shall burn, that fire shall not be comprehended; So deep a music roll, that our desire Shall hear no sound; shall beam a light so splendid That darkness shall be infinite: the lyre Fashioned of truth, strung with men’s heart-strings blended, Shall sound as silence: and all souls be still In wisdom’s high communion with will.